Christmas Debrief – Part 1

Well, this may take several parts, and I am exhausted after throwing a birthday party for Ane.  But, here we go.

After our celebration with the Friend and Doc crew, we had our annual family gathering at Uncle Buddy’s house for dinner, gifts for the young kids, and the white elephant bingo exchange.  Ane and Tad played along in bingo, too, and Ane won a few times.  I got a couple of bingos, too, and let Tad pick out the wrapped packages for me.  But he had more fun when Santa answered his wish early and he got to open a present especially for him.

Yes, that is a LEGO Batman Visual Dictionary… something he had specifically asked Santa for.  He was a very happy kid.  He also got a cool Batman toy from his other great-aunt and uncle, so he had quite a good haul that night.  (And then he threw up.  But fortunately, I managed to get him to throw up in an empty sack and save my aunt and uncle’s white carpet.  And Tad has not thrown up since, thank God.  We chalked it up to overeating on a tender tummy.)

Ane also got some good gifts…

… and Rerun was thrilled with his gifts, especially this one.

I got no peace the next day until it was open and assembled.

Sunday was actually fairly quiet – the Webmaster had one last rehearsal at church, because he was running sound on Christmas Eve.  The service on Christmas Eve itself was nice… at least, what I could see of it.  Tad was fine between sitting with his Gichan and playing with the iPad, but Rerun was in the service too.  He had the iPod, which was keeping him still… but not quiet.  He kept saying loudly, “Wook, Mama, Angry Birds Star Wars!” repeatedly, and then making the bird noises when we tried to hush him.  I finally had to take him out to the nursery, so he could keep talking to the iPod without disturbing everyone else.  Sigh.

Ane and the Webmaster stayed for the second Christmas Eve service (Ane had a very small part in a performance, and decided to stay to repeat it, and the Webmaster ran sound again), while I took the boys to Grandma and Gichan’s for homemade pizza.  Once the services were over and everyone had finally gotten some pizza, we checked the Santa NORAD tracker and headed for home.  Santa was coming!

The kids took baths and prepared their offerings.

Each kid picked a cookie for Santa – in Rerun’s case, we didn’t let him near the cookies, but we put his favorite, the Gingerbread Bear, on the plate for him.

And despite their excitement, the lateness of the hour meant that the kids were fast asleep within 30 minutes of going to bed, visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads….

…. to be continued….

This entry was posted on Friday, December 28th, 2012 at 12:35 am and is filed under Children, Family, From the Church Front, Holidays.
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